


I think that I could love you because you know how to be free

by dangercupcake



Series: Superstition Fanwork [23]
Category: Hockey - Fandom, Original Work, Superstition by Superstition_hockey
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Queer Character, Canon Queer Relationship, Chantal Watch Watch, Hockey, Lovers to Bros, Lovers to Bros to Husbands, M/M, NCAA, NHL, Safer Sex, Transformative Works Welcome, Underage Drinking, luc_chantal_sweatpants_dick.tumblr.com, superstition by superstition_hockey - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:47:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26486665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dangercupcake/pseuds/dangercupcake
Summary: When Oliver Jackson is three years old, his parents separate. When he’s five, they finally finish dividing up the assets and divorce. His mother wants to move to where she can get a good job, but his father insists they stay in Toronto, close to him and his parents....but he meets Luc Chantal and they fall in love anyway.
Relationships: Oliver Jackson/Luc Chantal, Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Series: Superstition Fanwork [23]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1724128
Comments: 92
Kudos: 136





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Superstition](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6099484) by [Superstition_hockey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Superstition_hockey/pseuds/Superstition_hockey). 



> My first chaptered work posted as a WIP since 2015. \o/ I hope y'all enjoy it. Superstition forever!!

When Oliver Jackson is three years old, his parents separate. When he’s five, they finally finish dividing up the assets and divorce. His mother wants to move to where she can get a good job, but his father insists they stay in Toronto, close to him and his parents. 

Ollie has to drop out of hockey because it’s too expensive, and there’s no one to drive him to or pick him up from practice. His dad wants him to be an accountant like him when he grows up, and his dad’s parents don’t like the violence. 

When he gets older, he understands, and he knows his mother could not have spent the time fighting that battle, but he resents his father for taking away his favorite hobby. They talk every two or three months, because his dad stopped being interested in having a kid long ago, and Ollie just… lets the contact trail off. Doesn’t respond to the texts, doesn’t call back. 

He’s kind of sad how easy it is. 

He drops his advanced math classes, and picks up a poetry class and a study hall, and then uses the study hall to skip out of school early. He gets a job as “Assistant Equipment Manager” which just means that he cleans gear, but it’s three hours every day and pays enough that he can save up to buy his own gear and pay the fees for a rec league.

Used skates that keep losing their edge, pads that are not quite padded enough, gloves that are old and smelly… Ollie doesn’t care. He’s back on the ice. He’s playing again. He sucks so much that he’s goalie for the first year, but when he turns sixteen, he shoots up and starts putting on muscle as fast as he can eat. They move him to defense, because no one can knock him down, and instead of doing his history homework, he does wind sprints and bag skates himself.

He works forty hours a week that summer, and buys brand new skates with beautiful blades. Breaking them in sucks, but he’s used to his feet being uncomfortable, and now he can outskate everyone on the ice.

Ollie’s dad stops paying child support when he turns eighteen, and he’s pretty sure that means local college, but then he’s scouted for NCAA. NCAA! He gets a scholarship to a small college in New York, the part where there’s snow, and he doesn’t care that the college has only won its championship cup three times in the entire history of the ECAC. He can take poetry and he can skate and… like… they don’t care that he’s gay. 

“If they care, it’s the wrong place for you,” his mother told him firmly, but he hadn’t believed her until the coach calls him and he blurts it out and the coach says that the team captain is also gay, their backup goalie is trans, and their women’s team is almost 70% queer. Before they’d even gotten off the phone, the coach had emailed him some PDF pamphlets about the LGBTQ+ presence on campus. There is an all queer co-ed crew team, and Ollie decides right then that he will try to meet them.

He has all of Ngozi Ukazu’s graphic novels, but he hadn’t thought there was a real place like Samwell anywhere in the world. 

It’ll be weird to not be in a city, but Ollie doesn’t even care.

And when he gets there, he introduces himself to everyone by his hockey handle. He was Ollie when he was a kid, but now he’s _Jacks_.

**

Half-Pipe crashes into their room with his usual flailing. “Luc—Chantal—Luc—oh my god—” he pants, and Jacks raises his eyebrows. “ _The Sharks!_ ”

Jacks loads up Insta and takes a look at the video of Luc Chantal, already projected to win the Art Ross and the Calder, wearing transparent white compression shorts and pouring water over his head. They watch the video over and over, Half-Pipe slumped against Jacks’s back. He buries his face in Jacks’s neck as Jacks starts the video for the sixth time. He moans when Chantal says, “Unghhhh,” at the end of the video. 

“I bet his O-face is amazing,” Half-Pipe says into Jacks’s neck. 

“Too bad yours is so uggo,” Jacks replies absently, his eyes catching on Chantal’s tiny flat brown nipples. Not even the bulge, so he’s a little embarrassed, but there’s something about his chest that Jacks just… loves. Has loved since he saw his first picture of Chantal when he was fifteen, the kid giving a shirtless interview after his first game in the Q. 

He’s Tumblr’s darling, and, yeah, Jacks has a Chantal-specific Tumblr set up, where he makes memes using quotes from Chantal over pictures and gifs from media, and also quotes from, like, Star Trek over pictures of Chantal. 

The picture of Chantal after his first year in the Q, when they lost the championships, sitting in his locker stall with his face in his hands, and the Jean-Luc Picard quote “It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose” underneath him, like a de-motivational poster, is still regularly reblogged and has over 100,000 notes.

Of course, whatever Jacks does with a gif of this video will probably trump that just because of the transparency of his shorts.

“Half-Pipe, go stay with Chucky,” he orders, and clicks the replay button again.

Half-Pipe laughs and bangs his head against the top of Jacks’s spine, and when Jacks looks around again, he’s alone.

Fuck yes. 

He rubs his dick through his sweatpants and lets his eyes drift down to where he can see what Chantal is packing through his Under Armour. 

Jacks is pretty sure he’ll end up with his eyes closed, but he’s going to start with them open, looking at the head of Chantal’s cock pressed against the wet, white material. 

Later that night, when he’s come four times and his balls hurt, he posts the video and a gif set of it to luc_chantal_sweatpants_dick.tumblr.com and notes in the tags “not sweatpants but worth breaking the rules”.

**

The gif of Luc Chantal’s first goal and celly gets the caption “You construct intricate rituals…”

Jacks doesn’t even have to finish the sentence. Everyone knows that meme. 

**

Jacks’s first year, they don’t even get into the ECAC tournament. The other guys seem really bummed out, but Jacks is thrilled to be playing competitive hockey. Also, couldn’t they tell that was going to happen? Jacks, Half-Pipe, Half-Pipe’s boyfriend Chucky, and Boyfriend-Chucky’s younger sister, also Chucky, who skates on the women’s team, are all going to Vegas for Spring Break instead of to the championships: Hozier, baby!

He sits next to Also Chucky on the plane, who tells him a long story about her tragic love life, and how her last girlfriend broke up with her, and so did her last boyfriend, and she thinks it’s her, but how is a hockey player supposed to give a significant other enough attention when they’re always playing or working or doing school work?

“I mean,” he says, “Chucky and Half-Pipe seem pretty happy?”

“Yeah, but they’re _men_ , they just jerk each other off in the shower or whatever,” she scoffs.

“I mean, like, is that what your boyfriend wanted?” Jacks raises his eyebrows at her. “I think Half-Pipe would, like, murder Chucky if Chucky was like, let me jerk you off in the team showers instead of making time for you.”

“You don’t understand because the men’s team—”

“Uh, no,” Jacks says. “I had a full-time job every summer to pay for gear and I was only playing in a rec league. I have two part time jobs right now, plus class, plus hockey. And I’m on a scholarship, so I have to keep my academics at a certain level or I lose my student visa and have to move back in with my mom in Toronto and figure out the rest of my life way before I’m ready.”

She eyes him. “Is that why you turned down Chucky when he asked you out at the beginning of the year?”

“Part of it.” Jacks shrugs. “But also I knew Half-Pipe was into him because he couldn’t stop talking about Chucky after our first practice, and I definitely did not want to get between them.”

“Pretty mature for a freshman.”

“Apparently more mature than _you_ anyway!” Jacks pinches her cheek and she glares at him. But it’s the way she glares at Chucky, not the way she glares at the dudes who watch the women’s hockey practice and catcall them.

She slaps his hand away and slumps in her seat. “I mean . . . maybe it is me. It just always seems like hockey is more important.”

“Well, like . . . if hockey is more important, probably the people you’re dating can tell, and they don’t want to come in second. That’s why I don’t date—anybody would come in like sixth place at this point, and who wants that? I don’t even want that.”

“But I want _sex_ ,” she whines, and then her eyes get big. “Do not tell Chucky I said that.”

“Pretty sure Chucky knows you have sex,” Jacks snorts. He has definitely heard Chucky complaining that he had to listen to one of Also Chucky’s hookups talk about her mouth. “Anyway, you think I’m not having sex? People love to bang hockey players. Go check out the baseball team some time. They love hockey ass.”

“I’m a top,” sniffs Also Chucky delicately.

“Sure,” Jacks says genially. “In that case, come with me to the next queer mixer and I’ll introduce you to some very nice girls who row crew. One of them wears a pin that says Pillow Princess to all the mixers, so you’ll probably like her.”

She glares at him again and then sighs. “Fine. That sounds good.”

“Thank you, Jacks, for being such a good bro,” he prompts. 

“Thank you, Jacks, for being such a good bro,” she repeats, then punches him on the arm.

**

Vegas is . . . exactly like all the movies. Not the old movies from the 1970s, but Disney movies. It’s full of billboards of Britney Spears, still in residence, and bright lights. Jacks takes a photo of the hockey arena—the Golden Knights are on a roadie this week, otherwise they’d be going to at least one game—and captions it “Can’t believe Kent Parson is not here” on Tumblr. 

Jacks doesn’t have a lot of spare cash lying around, but Half-Pipe and Chucky are both from pretty well-off families. When Jacks started rooming with Half-Pipe, he’d made a joke about being a scholarship kid and Half-Pipe had looked at him weirdly, and Jacks was ready for it to be really weird, but instead Half-Pipe had said, “Bro, if you help me keep my gear clean so our room doesn’t smell like a shit heap all the time, I’ll be in charge of snacks and beer,” and since it’s not much work to clean the gear of two forwards instead of just one, especially in exchange for as much alcohol as he can drink and all the high-protein snacks he can eat after the dining hall closes, it was a deal. He’s pretty sure Half-Pipe said something to Chucky, because Jacks never buys his own food when they go out to eat, never buys his own drinks when they go into one of the million bars that take their fake IDs, and had been presented with his plane ticket as a fait accompli as long as he agreed to sit with Also Chucky. 

This means that instead of the kind of shitty hotel Jacks had been originally planning to book himself into on the outskirts of the Strip for a weekend, they are staying in a suite in a casino for the entire week of Spring Break. Half-Pipe and Chucky are in the room with the California King, and Jacks and Also Chucky are in the room with the two queens. She rolls her eyes when she sees the setup.

“Let me know if you wanna hook up,” she calls to Jacks from where she’s setting out toiletries in the bathroom. “I’ll find someplace else to be.”

“Yeah,” says Jacks, “same to you.”

She pokes her head out of the bathroom just long enough to wink at him.

**

Jacks and Also Chucky end up in the casino, where Jacks gives Also Chucky a quick lesson in how to play five-card stud, and then watches her lose $500 in under twenty minutes. She loses another $500 at blackjack. 

“This is boring,” she announces. “I’m getting a drink.”

Jacks doesn’t say anything. She’s 21, and she can do whatever she wants. Jacks isn’t her older brother, or even really her friend. They’re just hockey bros. And _not_ the kind of hockey bros Jacks played with in rec league, who’d score on you and then suck your dick in the bathroom of the Timmy’s around the corner. 

She slides her chips to Jacks and leaves the table, but even though Jacks’s fake ID got him into the casino, he doesn’t want to push it.

“Thanks,” he says to the dealer, and pushes about half the chips over. It’s not his money, and the dealer could probably use it. 

“Thanks,” she says, nodding, pulling the chips toward herself.

“I love a generous guy,” says the guy behind him. He has a deep voice and the kind of accent that makes Jacks miss home, and when he turns around it’s goddamn Luc Chantal.

Jacks isn’t a total country bumpkin or anything. He used to hang out during Marlies practices and go to Marlies games and go to the locker room with his rec team, so like. He knows how to talk to famous hockey players. Rich Clune has signed _multiple_ jerseys for Jacks, including a game-worn one. He even gave Jacks a hug once, when his team took him out to celebrate his “official” coming out. 

Luc Chantal ain’t shit compared to Jacks’s childhood crush on Dicky’s thighs.

“Hey,” Jacks says. “Did you want to sit down?”

Nice job, Jackson. Just play it cool.

“I’m not really a gambler.” Chantal smiles at him and his eyes get all glittery and his teeth are _perfect_ ; how are his teeth perfect? He’s a hockey player! “Wanna get a drink?”

Jacks had been worried about dressing the part for a week at a Vegas casino, but apparently he should not have been concerned about his flat-front khakis and the polo shirt he had desperately ironed before leaving the room with Also Chucky, because Luc Chantal is just walking around in a shirt with its arms and neck ripped out and a pair of board shorts. He’s in _flip flops_.

Also—wait.

“You . . . want to get a drink?” Jacks asks, and he hears the dealer muffle a laugh.

“Are you not into it?” Chantal’s mouth quirks in a grin, like he knows everyone is into him.

“I would love to,” Jacks tells him, hoping his honesty and eagerness come through in his voice.

Chantal waits for Jacks to slide out of his seat, and then runs an arm around his back. Jacks realizes too late that he left all the chips on the table, but doesn’t go back for them. A drink with Luc Chantal is definitely worth the $500 in chips he had left. Part of him cringes at that, but like. 

Luc Chantal.

Chantal steers him toward the door. “You don’t mind drinking somewhere else, do you?” He flashes a full on grin this time. “I’m not 21 yet, and they don’t really care, but I don’t want to push it.”

“I’m not 21 yet either,” Jacks says. “I was just thinking that I was going to go back up to my room and crack open the mini-bar instead of staying down here.”

“Oh, am I invited?”

“Yes, absolutely.” Jacks winds his arm over Chantal’s and steers them out of the casino (he thought casino floors having no windows was a myth, but it is completely true; they also have no clocks), and toward the hotel elevators. 

They’re not the only people in the elevator until they get higher up in the building. Jacks lets his eyes drift up and down Chantal’s body. 

“I knew you weren’t six-four,” he finds himself saying.

“Oh, is that right?” Chantal’s dark eyebrows go up.

Jacks shrugs self-deprecatingly. “I’ve been following you since Juniors,” he says. “I almost moved to the town you’re from and would’ve played hockey there.”

Chantal looks a little uncomfortable. “What do you do now?” he asks gamely.

“NCAA in New York,” Jacks says. He leans against the other side of the elevator, but then it pings and they’re there. He steps out onto the 50th floor. “You can stay in the elevator. No harm, no foul, man.”

Chantal hesitates. “I have . . . an NDA . . .”

“I’ll sign it,” Jacks says immediately. “And after I text my roommate not to come back tonight, you can hold onto my phone.”

“Do this a lot?”

Jacks catches the elevator doors before they can close on Chantal. “I’m from Toronto, so . . . not really, but I know how it is.”

“But you’re out?” Chantal challenges.

Jacks takes him by the hand and draws him out of the elevator. No one is in the hall. It’s quiet except for the Britney playing in the background. “I’ve never had a reason to really be in,” he says quietly. “I don’t make three mil a year.”

“One mil.”

“You’re telling me you don’t have a really fancy bonus schedule?” He gently presses Chantal against the wall, and then brings their bodies together. “Don’t answer that, I don’t care.” Also, he already knows, because how many rookies come out of the Q to a three mil contract? Not many. “Come to my room, Luc. We’ll drink a little, and then I’ll touch you.”

“I . . . really want that.” Chantal still seems hesitant but Jacks leans down to kiss him and he kisses back eagerly.


	2. Chapter 2

Chantal has never heard Hozier. Chantal has never done anal, and wants it. Chantal has never sucked a dick, and wants to suck Jacks’s. Chantal throws himself into fucking like he’s never done it before and is never going to get to do it again, and Jacks finds himself fingering him slowly, edging him, watching Chantal’s bright eyes flash and then get squeezed shut when Jacks brushes his prostate and then flash again. 

They don’t get to the vodka until after they’ve each come twice. And before Chantal can open the bottle, Jacks makes him come again. Just for good measure. 

It is totally unsurprising that Chantal is as competitive about sex as he is about everything else, so Jacks is walking him through sucking cock when Also Chucky opens the door.

“Oh my _god,”_ she says.

“Oh my _god,”_ Jacks says. He keeps his hand on Chantal’s head, and Chantal doesn’t stop sucking anyway.

“Holy _shit,”_ says the guy standing next to her.

“We’re leaving,” she says, but the guy keeps watching them until Jacks throws a pillow at him.

“Wow,” the guy says under his breath as he closes the door, and Jacks starts to laugh.

Chantal pinches his thigh. “Pay attention, Jacks!”

“You’re doing great, babe,” Jacks says around giggles.

Chantal grunts and wraps his mouth around Jacks’s dick again, taking it even deeper.

**

When Jacks wakes up, Chantal is doing pushups. Naked. Jacks calls for room service—pancakes, eggs, bacon, sausage, and fruit and coffee for himself, and a triple order of eggs with spinach, a triple order of oatmeal (no sugar), and a triple order of fruit for Chantal. Ice water for him, too, and, after a little consideration, a box of herbal teas. There’s no way this guy drinks coffee, and maybe he doesn’t even drink caffeinated tea. 

He hangs up and Chantal says, without even breathing hard, “You didn’t ask me what I want.”

“Did I get your order wrong?”

“No.” Chantal slides a glance at him from under those criminally long eyelashes, and then starts clapping in between each pushup.

Jacks is an athlete. He mostly fucks other athletes. He actually can’t remember the last time he fucked someone who wasn’t an athlete. Chantal is still impressive as hell.

He watches Chantal’s ass, covered in black fuzz. The fuzz gets darker at the small of his back, and then disappears, but it’s also all over his chest and stomach. He doesn’t manscape or anything, and it looks really good. Jacks wants to shove his face in the crease of Chantal’s thigh and breathe there for a little while. He wants to bite down on Chantal’s neck and leave marks. He wants . . . a lot. That he probably can’t have. Shouldn’t have. Shouldn’t even ask for.

“Is anyone going to come look for you?”

Chantal stops doing pushups and sits back. It’s probably okay, Jacks figures; this isn’t a gross NCAA hotel in Wisconsin. The carpets probably get cleaned more than once a month.

“Mon chum,” he drawls, “I am all yours until you leave Vegas.”

“Or until your bye week is over,” Jacks laughs. He gets out of bed and pulls on a pair of silky basketball shorts. His dick is chubbed up. He knows what he looks like, and he loves the look on Chantal’s face. “You want a pair of shorts or should I bring breakfast in here?”

He waits for a few beats, then adds, “Hey, Luc. My eyes are up here.”

Chantal’s eyes flick up to his face, and he looks weirdly unsure until he realizes Jacks is grinning.

“You’re a dick,” Chantal says, standing up and stepping into his own shorts. 

“Sorry I didn’t wake up early enough to put on a show for you,” Jacks says drily, “but my season was over a few weeks ago and I’m enjoying slacking off until summer training starts.”

“What’s your GPA?” Chantal asks.

“Gonna dump me for a smarter model?” Jacks volleys. “Gotta tell ya, you won’t have any luck out there. They’re all hockey players who _aren’t_ in college on scholarship.”

“Three point six,” Chantal guesses.

“It’ll be three point eight by the end of the semester.” Jacks opens the bedroom door and steps out, keeps it held open for Chantal. “I’m majoring in poetry.”

“Poetry.”

“I wanted to be even more of a disappointment to my father than I already was. He wanted me to give up hockey and become an accountant. Instead, I got a job after school, bought my own gear, joined a rec league, and then went to the college that gave me the best hockey scholarship.” Jacks sprawls out in one of the arm chairs at the table and pats his knee.

“I will crush you,” Chantal says dubiously.

“Come on, _mon chum_ ,” Jacks says, and sucks a little on Chantal’s nipple when it comes close to his face. “You barely weigh anything.”

Chantal scowls at him.

“I bet your nutritionist is always on your ass to eat more carbs.”

“I stick to my macros,” Chantal says stiffly.

“Uh-huh.” Jacks rolls his eyes and bites Chantal’s nipple again. “So, what about you? Your parents love you? Everyone love you?”

“I’m a disappointment to my best friend,” Chantal sighs. “But, yeah, like, my parents love me.”

“Mmm,” says Jacks around a mouthful of nipple.

“She’s like . . . you know. An activist. Very involved in . . . you know.” 

“I don’t know,” Jacks says. He tilts his head back to look at Chantal.

“She’s a woman surfer. She has to fight all the time just to survive and meanwhile Gatorade is paying me—you know.”

“Okay, yes, I do know.” Jacks nods. 

“I hang out with her and her friends. They’re all surfers and they live in a big house together and they all love each other and fuck around and like . . . the first time I ever got a blowjob from a guy, I was in her bed with like six other people and he just, you know, said, hey, I want to suck your dick, and then suddenly, like . . . I was bisexual.”

“That’s kind of hot.” Jacks rubs the front of Chantal’s shorts. And then he hears the door open. “Shit. Uh. You have more of those NDAs?”

“Why?” says Chantal at the same time that Half-Pipe starts yelling.

(“Luc motherfucking Chantal!” Half-Pipe shrieks. “Luc Chantal! Oh my god! Number 67! Is in my hotel room!”)

“I thought you guys were sleeping in today,” Jacks says. “Didn’t you say you weren’t getting out of bed before three p.m. any day this week?”

“Good thing we got out of bed or we’d have missed Luc! Fucking! Chantal!” Half-Pipe yells.

“You can call me Chants,” Chantal offers.

“Oh my god,” gasps Half-Pipe, clutching Chucky’s arm. “We can call him Chants.”

Jacks rests his forehead on Chantal’s arm, closing his eyes. “Go away,” he moans.

“Luc! Chantal!” yells Half-Pipe.

There’s a knock on the door to the room. Chantal slides off Jacks’s lap and opens the door, signs for the food, brings it back to the table while Chucky whispers furiously in Half-Pipe’s ear.

“Not sure if there’s enough,” Chantal says with a sweet smile, “but we can share?”

“Oh _no,_ ” says Chucky over Half-Pipe’s excited noises. “We would not _dream of it_. You and Jacksy here have a nice breakfast. We’ll just . . . go to one of the restaurants.”

“I’m not wearing _shoes!_ ” they hear Half-Pipe protest as Chucky hauls him out the door.

Jacks makes a face at Chantal. “Sorry, man.”

“It’s okay.” Chantal makes a face back at him. “Sorry for . . . you know.”

“Being incredibly famous?”

“Making it weird.”

“Oh, that was _not_ weird. Even last night wasn’t that week, with Also Chucky.”

“Also Chucky?”

“That’s her name. There’s Chucky, and Also Chucky. And Mama Chuck, Papa Chuck, and Baby Chucky.” Jacks grins, scooping out a strawberry. “Baby Chucky is taller than me and gonna make the Canadian Olympic team for her curling.”

“Nice,” Chants says. “Olympics.”

“Yeah, the dream, right?”

“Yeah.” Chantal stirs his oatmeal, even though he didn’t put anything into it, not even fruit.

“Hey, are you okay?” Jacks puts his hand on Chantal’s knee, but the guy doesn’t look up. He squeezes, and then sits back and focuses on the pancakes.

“Those guys are on your hockey team, right?” Chantal finally says.

“Yeah.”

“What’s it like?”

“Hockey?” Jacks laughs. “I think you know, man.”

“Nah. Being . . . like . . . not being worried about people finding out, and getting to play hockey anyway.” Chantal glances up from under his eyelashes, and the look could not be more different from the sexy, sultry way he’d done it earlier.

“Oh.” Jacks blanks. “Well, like. I wasn’t going to take the scholarship, but Coach Mac told me that, like, a bunch of the hockey players are queer. Our goalie is trans. I think like most of the women’s team is queer. And a bunch of the guys on my team are pretty openly queer. Some of them keep it more on the down low than others, but I’d say like half of us are queer? Maybe a little more? There are a few guys who came out of NDTP who I’m not really sure about, but yeah. Like say about half of us are queers of some kind.”

“Queers,” says Chantal, and it sounds like he’s rolling the word around in his mouth.

“Half-Pipe is a freshman like me, and he and Chucky basically fell in love the second time they met—”

“Not the first time?”

“The first time Chucky was too busy looking at my ass,” Jacks says wryly. “But I kind of threw Half-Pipe at him during our first team party.”

“Good bro,” says Chantal approvingly.

“Our captain isn’t queer, but both the As are.” Jacks bites his lip. “One of them is graduating and I’m pretty sure I’m gonna be an A next year. The guy who’s graduating came to one of my rec league games when I was in high school being scouted. He was great. He told me that people would say shit on the ice to me, but that it wouldn’t be any worse than what I was hearing in the rec league.”

“Is it?”

“Worse? Nah. It’s better, actually, because there’s no fighting, so no one is trying to take my head off when I chirp them back about paying more attention to my dick than the game.” Jacks grins at him. “A few times I’ve hooked up with rival players who are, like, not out, but the way they looked at me when I chirped them . . . you know?”

Chantal makes a face and goes back to his oatmeal. 

“Anyway, like, would it be easier if there were any out players in the NHL? Maybe. But probably not. People are gonna be people.” Jacks shrugs.

“That isn’t—”

“Sure it is. Why wouldn’t it be? If I were in the NHL, I don’t know if I’d come out just to make some teenagers feel less alone. It would be a whole different ball of wax if I knew that just by coming out, I would have a bunch of six-foot-nine, three hundred pound guys chasing me down to beat the shit out of me.”

Chantal pushes his oatmeal aside. “It’s not that simple.”

“I think it is,” counters Jacks. “You have to put your own safety and comfort first.”

“I need to be a good person first.”

“I think you’re a hockey player first, aren’t you? If you got hurt and couldn’t play anymore _your rookie year_ , what would you do with your life?” Jacks feels bad when he sees the look on Chantal’s face. “Listen, man, I’m not saying don’t do it. I’m not even saying I think you shouldn’t. I’m saying, like . . . NCAA is not the NHL. Even juniors hasn’t had any out players since like 2020. Don’t come out because you think you have to in order to be a good person. Only do it if you think people thinking you’re straight is inhibiting your ability to live your best life.”

“How do I know if it is?” asks Chantal intensely. “Shouldn’t it automatically be?”

“Why? You don’t owe everyone your private business.”

“But . . .”

“If you _want_ to come out and you _want_ to be that three-mil rookie who gets traded to Arizona, like . . . sure. But if you want to stay with the Sharks and get that eighteen mil contract in three years, I think you know—”

“Fuck that,” Chantal interrupts. “I don’t want to get paid for pretending I’m something I’m not.”

“That’s not why you’re getting paid, man!” Jacks pushes his pancakes away. “But tell me you’d be okay having your knee crushed and never being able to skate again, or play, because that’s where you’d be headed.”

“I bet you’re wrong,” challenges Chantal.

“Prove it,” Jacks snaps, and then shuts his mouth hard. He hadn’t meant to say that. Fuck.

Chantal looks satisfied. “I will.”

“Chantal . . .”

He’s grinning as he pulls his oatmeal back to himself. “No way, bro. You said. I’m doing it.”

“Do you even have a publicist?”

“I have the Sharks’ publicist. Amanda. She loves me.”

Jacks sighs. “I’m sure she does. I’m sure _everyone_ does.”

“Not everyone.”

“Sure,” says Jacks. “The Kings hate you. The Golden Knights hate you. But I bet everyone you work with loves you.”

Chantal makes a face. “They really don’t. But the Sharks organization is pretty good.”

“Well, call Amanda before you do anything crazy.”

“You should marry me,” Chantal says at the same time, and Jacks, who was picking up his coffee cup, drops it when his hand spasms.

“What?” he chokes.

“I’m—I’m queer. I can marry a man if I want to.” 

“You’re eighteen and you want to marry a college student who plays for the NCAA?”

“I can marry _anyone_ , and you seem like a good guy.”

“You don’t know anything about me,” says Jacks desperately, while his heart pounds YES YES YES.

“I know you’re good in bed and a good hockey player and—”

“You don’t know I’m a good hockey player.”

Chantal looks disgusted. “Of course I do. I looked at your highlights this morning. Plus you’re on scholarship _for hockey_. They wouldn’t have done that if you weren’t a good player.”

Jacks rolls his eyes. “I’m not at a Big Ten school, man, I’m just a forward.”

“Shut up,” says Chantal around a mouthful of oatmeal. “You can just say you don’t want to marry me.”

“ _Do I_ want to marry you?” Jacks asks him. He mops up the spilled coffee and pours himself another cup from the carafe. He doesn’t let Chantal’s baleful stare stop him from adding white sugar and creamer.

“Probably not,” Chantal finally says.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I’m really competitive. I bet my best friend that I could hold my breath longer than her, like, while we were in the middle of having sex.”

Jacks chokes out a laugh.

“And I’m . . . you know. Obsessive about food.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“And I like my routines. PB&J before games. Can’t talk to my mom before a game, only after. Stuff like that.”

“All hockey players have superstitions,” Jacks says. 

“I once left a bag of beef jerky and a bottle of red Gatorade for the Hockey Gods outside a bar where Wayne Gretzky puked in Winnipeg.”

Jacks shouts with laughter. “Did you ask them for anything?”

“I asked them for . . .” Chantal scrunches up his nose. “A best friend. A teammate. Someone to be with me. And to be the best at hockey.”

“Maybe they could only do one of those things,” offers Jacks. His heart twists a little at the idea of young Luc Chantal trying to find a best friend by asking the _hockey gods_ to send him one.

“Maybe.” Chantal lets out a long sigh and pushes away the oatmeal. He hasn’t even opened the cloche with the eggs and spinach yet. “You’re right, it was a stupid idea.”

Jacks shrugs. “I’m in college. I get to do stupid shit all the time. You probably never get to do stupid shit, since everything about you is insured to hell and back, right?”

“Yeah. I can’t even surf.”

“Sucks,” Jacks says. “We should get married and have a honeymoon in Hawai’i and both learn to surf.”

“California has some of the best waves,” Chantal tells him.

“Well if I wanted to go somewhere I’d already been on my honeymoon, we could go to Tofino. Objectively better than anywhere in the United States, because it’s in Canada.”

Chantal laughs. “Okay, I’ll take you a bunch of places you’ve never been to on our honeymoon, and we’ll go surfing at all of them.”

“That sounds like a good plan,” says Jacks. “And I want a pink diamond.”

“You have orange hair, I’m not getting you a pink diamond.”

“Don’t get me an emerald,” Jacks warns. “I fucking hate green.”

“Okay, what about one of those—you wear number 42, right?”

“Life, the universe, and everything,” Jacks agrees.

“I’ll get you a ring with 42 diamonds.”

“Your activist friend will be very unhappy with you, but I’ll take it. I’ve never had a diamond.” Jacks grins at him. “What kind of ring do you want? One of those cool silicone ones you can wear to the gym?”

“Sure,” says Chantal. “Nothing flashy.”

“Nothing _flashy_? You do remember that I know who you are and have seen your collection of watches, right?”

Chantal flashes him a trademark smirk. “Can’t have my wedding ring taking attention away from my watch, bro.”

Jacks laughs until he cries.


	3. Chapter 3

**

Chantal pulls him out of the room that night to go to one of the restaurants and eat $250 steak. 

“Just two bros sitting on opposite sides of the table ‘cause we’re not gay,” Jacks laughs, and laughs harder when Chantal makes a quizzical face. He’s never gotten to introduce someone to a twenty-year-old meme before. 

“I don’t get it,” Chantal says, looking at the picture. “Why would anyone think they’re gay if they’re sitting next to each other?”

Jacks clicks his screen off and slips his phone into his pocket. “Fragile masculinity,” he says, shrugging. “Are you sure you don’t want some of my sweet potato?”

“Not with all that butter on it.” Chantal makes a face. 

Jacks rubs their ankles together under the table and smiles to himself when Chantal blushes.

**

Chantal actually gets a new room at the hotel so they can have privacy, since Also Chucky is in the room when they get back, and apparently Chantal is sharing his hotel room with three of his hockey buddies who came with him to Vegas.

Jacks cannot imagine having enough money to just . . . get a hotel room for a week. In a casino. In Vegas. 

“I’m not doing anything else with it.” Chantal shrugs. “I keep trying to give money to Crash, but she won’t take it.”

“Tell her that if she takes it, she’d be subverting the patriarchy.” 

Chantal studies his face and then nods, pulling out his cell phone for the first time, as far as Jacks knows. “One sec, okay?”

“Sure.” Jacks leans against the wall in the elevator vestibule and watches Chantal’s huge grin as he texts his surfer best friend. His heart twists a little. This guy is amazing. He’s gorgeous, his hockey is gorgeous, he’s rich and talented, he cares about people, even people he doesn’t know . . . Jacks feels kind of stupid that he had blown Chantal off about the marriage thing, but, like, he probably wasn’t serious, right? So . . . whatever. 

It’s not like Jacks is missing out on something. They’re having a vacation fling. People do it all the time. It’s like a roadie fling for grown ups. 

He’s deep in his head when Chantal finally puts the phone away and reaches out for Jacks’s hand.

“What’s that face, mon chum?” he asks.

“Just thinking,” Jacks replies, deliberately smoothing out his face. 

“You can tell me,” Chantal says seriously.

“Nah,” Jacks says. “Just stupid shit.”

“Let’s stop on the twenty-fifth floor,” says Chantal, punching the button for the elevator. “I got something to do there.”

Jacks holds his hand and follows him through the hallway, but he’s not paying attention, so he almost bumps into Chantal when they stop. 

CHAPEL.

“Um,” Jacks says, swallowing hard.

“Listen,” Chantal says to him. “I’m not, like. A prize. I know that. But we could make a difference, you know? I could really _do something_. And I want . . . I want to be more than just the kid forward with no friends.”

“You have friends,” Jacks says weakly. “Chantal . . . _Luc . . ._ ”

“If you don’t want to for real, I won’t ask again or make it weird,” Luc says. “But don’t say no to protect me. I want to protect everyone else.”

“In that case.” Jacks clears his throat. “In that case, I’m gonna say yes, because I feel like maybe someone _needs_ to protect _you.”_

“And you’re the man for that job?” Luc teases, squeezing his hand.

Jacks squeezes back. “Fucking right I am.”

“Gonna be Jacks Chantal?”

Jacks snickers. “My name is Oliver.”

“Jacks,” says Luc stubbornly. And then touches his face. “Jacks.”

They kiss softly, lightly, and then head into the chapel.


	4. Chapter 4

Jacks had expected a lot more than a very pretty lady who sighed and said, “Of course you did,” when Luc facetimed her to tell her he married a mid-level NCAA hockey forward. Who is a dude.

“There’s a bunch of stuff we should do, right?” Luc asks. 

“Yes, and fucking _thank you_ for calling me before you posted anything to Instagram,” she says, rubbing an eye carefully. Her makeup is so impeccable it looks like she is not wearing any at all, which Jacks is pretty sure means that she is wearing _a lot_ and is _very good_ at applying it. Jacks sucks at everything but black eyeliner, and even that . . . like, he’s definitely been made fun of more than once for his “guyliner a la emo”.

Luc looks guiltily over at Jacks. “Uh, Jacks said we had to.”

“Well, he’s my new favorite,” says Amanda. “Let me talk to him.”

Luc makes a funny face but passes over the phone. Jacks is sprawled on the couch behind Luc, so he could have just kept talking over Luc’s shoulder, but he takes the phone anyway.

“Hi,” he says to Amanda. “I’ve heard a lot of great stuff about you.”

“Great,” she says, “I’ve heard exactly nothing about you except that you have good stats.”

“Luc has his priorities in order,” Jacks tells her solemnly.

She laughs at that, at least. “Are you planning to stick around, or are you getting a quickie divorce?”

“Hey!” says Luc loudly, but Jacks shushes him and puts a hand in his hair.

“We’re in it,” he tells Amanda. “Luc wants to make a scene. I tried to talk him out of it but I think if I had said no, he would have married the next guy who walked by.” Luc makes a disgruntled noise but Jacks ignores him. “I’m out, been out pretty much all my life, so whatever we do . . . I’m fine, but we need to protect Luc.”

“I work for the Sharks, so my job is to protect _them,”_ Amanda tells him. 

“Wanna switch loyalties? We probably pay better.”

“We’ll see,” she says, and presses her lips together. “I need to have some conversations with people here before you and Luc can move forward with anything. I’m going to push for us to say that we don’t comment on players’ private lives when they’re just living their lives, and congratulate you and Luc on your nuptials and wish you a happy marriage. I don’t know how . . . how anyone is going to react to that.”

Jacks searches his mind for tidbits he knows about the Sharks. “The assistant coach who does strength training?” he asks.

“How do you know that?” Amanda is clearly startled.

“Tumblr.”

“The bane of my fucking existence,” Amanda grumbles. “Yeah, him and a few others. But leadership in the room will be behind Luc, and I’m sure the GM and most of those guys will be on the side that gets us the best hockey, and puts asses in the seats, and that’s Luc.”

“You don’t think they’re going to trade him? Or let him go to the Nordiques?”

“The—what?”

“If the NHL was trying to keep it a secret that the next expansion team is in Quebec and a revival of the Nordiques, they’re doing a really bad job.” Jacks tugs his fingers through Luc’s shiny shiny beautiful hair. 

Amanda lets out a slow breath. “One step at a time,” she tells him. “I’ll be in touch. In the meantime, take some lovey-dovey couple photos, and at least one really nice one of the ring. You’ll want a lot of stuff for Instagram, especially when the bye week is over and you’re separated. And be prepared to be scouted by California colleges. If you’re not interested in moving to California, better say so immediately.” She pauses and looks away. “San Jose State has a club team, not NCAA, but it’s close and it’s not awful. I can do some more research if—”

“Yes,” says Jacks firmly. Luc looks up at him in surprise. “I’m moving to California to be with Luc. I’ll go to any college that wants me and is close. If he gets traded, I’ll move with him. I’m in this, Amanda. I’m _in this._ Someone needs to protect him and have his back, and that’s me.”

“Yeah, what’s marriage except bros for life?” Amanda grumbles. “Okay. I’ll call back with more questions. Or—email?”

“Email,” Jacks tells her, smirking. “We’ll be kind of busy.”

She ends the call on her end without saying anything, and Jacks laughs out loud.

“You’re moving to California?” Luc twists and climbs up Jacks until he’s straddling Jacks’s lap. “I didn’t expect—”

“What kind of marriage do you want?” Jacks interrupts. “The kind where we’re across the country and never see each other, or the kind where we have each other’s backs all the time, every day?”

“I travel a lot,” Luc hedges.

“I eat a lot of ice cream!” Jacks says in exasperation. “Who cares? Amanda said bros for life, and that’s what we’re doing now, right? Bros for life.”

Luc stares at him, an inscrutable look on his face. He has a crooked nose, and plush lips, and deep deep deep eyes that Jacks will never get tired of staring into. Jacks is pretty sure he shaved in the morning, but he already practically has a beard, not just a shadow of one. He’s beautiful, and so intelligent, and also so very stupid. He needs a keeper. Jacks wants a family. This is how they can do that together.

“Yes,” Luc finally says. “Bros for life. Mon chum . . .” He touches Jacks’s face. “I think the Hockey Gods sent you.”

Jacks smiles, and turns to kiss the inside of Luc’s palm. “Maybe they sent _you_ to me,” he says softly. “Did you think of that?”

“No.” Luc shuts his eyes, and Jacks watches his eyelashes. “Do you want me to fall in love with you?”

“Someday that would be pretty nice, but until then I’m happy with building a future together and a lot of sex,” Jacks cracks.

“I promise, then. Building a future. Lots of sex.” Luc lets out a long sigh. “I promise.”

“I promise too.” Jacks dips to kiss him on the mouth. “We’re gonna be unstoppable, okay? We’re gonna be amazing.”

*

Also, the Hozier concert was a total banger; Jacks is pretty sure this has been the best week of his life.


End file.
